Corpus-Paul

["Mark D. Nanos" <nanos AT gvi.net>]

Dear Liz:
>I had written:
>> > Of course Jewish people should observe the Law, that is not the
>> problem but
>> > an advantage (note that by the logic of 1 Cor. 7:17-20 to remain in a
>> > circumcised state and Gal. 5:3 that one in a circumcised state
>> is obliged
>> > to observe the Law, that Paul holds this view). The issue returns to a
>> > question on the place of Christ, not the Law. Was he or was he
>> not the one
>> > who has brought the age to come into the present age? Is that
>> not the real
>> > question that set apart this Jewish group from other Jewish
>> groups at the
>> > first?
>
To which you responded:
>I don't think Paul thought that Jewish Christians at least should obey the
>law. Paul said, become like me as I have become like you. I take this to
>mean, become like me and accept my social and sexual mores, because I have
>become like you and given up the dietary laws and the holidays.  Since he
>thought that all Jews should become Christian, he thought the issue of the
>law, as a marker of Jewish identity moot. A new day had dawned and the law
>had become obsolete. There is neither Jew nor Greek.  It is this notion that
>the law has become obsolete that set the new Jewish group apart from other
>Jewish groups.

I now respond:
I have several problems with the case as you have stated it. If the premise
of your first statement of opinion is the following sentences, then I do
not accept the assumptions or interpretations upon which it is based. I
assume you are referring to Gal. 4:12 about the call to mutual
identification (it is helpful to have citations so one does not waste their
time guessing to what you refer only to find out perhaps that you were
arguing on different grounds). If so, then while your view may be shared by
other capable interpreters as well, I still think it is not so clear that
this is what the text means; actually, I think it means something very
different.

The point of the statement continues (vv. 12b-20) in the reminder of the
past trust the Galatians had in Paul even when they had cause to suspect
him when a stranger upon arrival of being an evil eye threat. But they
instead chose to bless him and his work among themselves. This trust Paul
has returned, even now in a letter of rebuke. Will they think him their
enemy for telling them the truth, or will they trust that he now, as
before, when a threatening stranger, has their best interests in mind?

The call to mutual identity is grounded in this, and not in any discussion
of law-observance (that is absent entirely from the passage; and 4:12
functions as a rhetorical marker of a new section of argument through v. 20
at least). And the point of the call to mutuality is their mutual
marginality because of their belief that the truth of the gospel is that
gentiles in Christ should not become Israelites, the rhetorical context of
the entire letter (note that 4:12 is the first call to action in the
letter!). Paul has been marginalized by other Jewish groups because of this
view, including the ones he had formerly been a most honored member of,
which upheld and upholds the traditional view that gentiles wishing to
become righteous ones must become Israelites by proselyte conversion
(1:13-16). It is for this change of mind and behavior that Paul is
persecuted, not actually his faith in Christ, but his upholding of
non-proselyte bound gentiles being treated as righteous ones by faith in/of
Christ (5:11).

He is calling the Galatian gentiles to endure the costs of remaining mere
liminals on the dominant Jewish communities terms, though fully equals
within this sub-group of Christ-believers, and appealing to his own
marginalization by the same groups for the same reasons. That is the role
of his appeal to mutual imitation.

I thus do not see your opinion of Paul's view of the law is maintained upon
the premise of this passage, if that is to what you appeal.

Liz, you then wrote:
>Not only this, but also Paul's view of the Messiah.  To my mind Paul
>introduced an entirely new concept of the role of the Messiah.  The notion
>that the death (or even life) of a messiah would render the law obsolete
>seems a curious, certainly non-Jewish, notion to me. It was certainly not
>held by the Qumran community.  Where does this idea come from?

Mark Nanos again:
I do not think that he held this view that you ascribe to him; so its
strangeness is the result of your construction, in my opinion. That it is
unattested might suggest the need to reconsider your assumptions about
Paul. Was he less informed of the Judaisms of his time than yourself? Of
course some have argued as though this was the case. But Paul seems to me
to have been a pretty logical and well informed guy who argued that his
position was anticipated in Scripture and attested demonstrations of the
Spirit that could be related to by his contemporaries, Jewish and
non-Jewish. I think when interpretations make it necessary to conclude
Paul's views were themselves non-sequiturs in terms of Jewish thought of
his time, that they probably need to be reconsidered as a matter of first
importance. It would be a long way down the line before I would think it
makes sense to decide otherwise.
>
>Mark continued:
> And it is the implications for how gentiles are viewed
>> that is the
>> > rub that sets this group apart on social terms (implied in
>> 5:11; it is not
>> > for faith in Christ or not observing Law, but for not
>> circumcising gentiles
>> > that Paul is persecuted by representatives of other Judaisms or Jewish
>> > interest groups).
>
>This is one issue that divides the Judaizing Christians I suppose from Paul.
>This is tangential to the issues which divide Christians from Jews it seems
>to me: the eternal validity of the law, and the role of the messiah.

What Judaizing Christians do you refer too? The people in Paul's
autobiographical account who are Jewish and believe in Christ are in
agreement with Paul; at least that is what he says! So who are these
people, and how do you know what divided them? The divisions Paul talks
about in Galatians concern how to re-identify gentiles who because of faith
in Christ want to be unambiguously regarded as righteous ones on Jewish
terms. This implies that Jewish terms of identity are still important in
the ethos of these Pauline groups. That is a point that the traditional
views have not come to grips with. And in my view, those influencing the
Galatians are not Christ-believers, but representatives of the "normative"
Jewish communities traditional policy of accommodating gentiles who wish to
become righteous ones and full members of the community; become proselytes.
I do not see that the validity of the law is the issue. That this is not
logically necessary should be obvious, since even if you don't grant that
Paul believed this, other Jewish people believing in Christ did observe the
law as a valid act of faithfulness (and thus that they are not logically
discontinuous). I think Paul did too; and that his rhetoric implies this
throughout. But that is the subject of a larger debate.

Sorry if this seems to be picking on you, or offensive in any way. I do not
deny that you express a view that many others share. But if you are going
to express it as though founded, it will take argument. Surely you realize
from my posts that I do not share the premises of the traditional or even
much of the new perspective view which is informed, in my opinion, but the
questions and concerns of an earlier time no doubt (e.g., such as the
construction of empire in the 4th century or the reformation; he was not
trying to run the Roman empire, and he did not have any problem with other
Roman Catholics), but not quite as early as Paul's own circumstance, which
gave rise to this rhetoric. I do not dispute their validity for other
contexts, but only whether they make a good historical case for
representing Paul's voice in his context, assuming that this is what we are
seeking to communicate about in this series of posts to date.

Regards,
Mark Nanos
Kansas City and
Postgraduate student at Univ. of St. Andrews